It is useful for login management utilities to be able to identify fields on web pages used for inputting login information, such as user name and password entry fields. Password entry fields can be identified by analyzing the underlying Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) describing a web page. HTML uses a specific type of field to represent a corresponding password entry field on a web page. However, there is no specific field type in HTML to be used for the entry of other types of login information. Some web pages use generic text entry field types for this purpose, whereas some web pages use additional password entry fields to prompt for the input of other login information.
For these reasons, login management utilities typically analyze the text on a web page proximate to given entry fields to attempt to identify login information input fields. For example, if the text “Enter User Name” appears next to a generic text entry field, a login management utility might conclude that the generic text entry field comprises a user name entry field. However, web pages containing login forms are written in many different languages, and use many different terms and criteria to identify their login information entry fields. This makes a proximate text based identification of specific login entry fields difficult and potentially inaccurate.
A text based analysis typically requires maintaining a database of keywords associated with different login entry fields in different languages. Such a database requires entries and updates for every language and all known words/phrases used to prompt a user to enter login information. In practice, no such database can ever be complete or current, and attempting to keep it so is very labor intensive.
It would be desirable to address these issues.